Dr. Jason McCool comes from a long line of Irishmen who have been asked, āis that your real last name?!ā A native of Brockton, MA, his wide-ranging academic interests center around cultural and racial memory in the United States, with forays into musical theater, the 1920s, Tin Pan Alley, modern jazz, Gustav Mahler, Irish singing, and the pianist Keith Jarrett, and his doctoral dissertation examined the racial resonances and historical contexts of "Hamilton: An American Musical."
He has presented papers at conferences at Boston University, Bridgewater State University, Harvard University, UNC Asheville, UNH, Liverpool Hope University (England), Maynooth University (Ireland). In college, he was a member of the All-American College Marching Band at Walt Disney World, and the Henry Mancini Institute in Los Angeles. After graduating as part of the first class of undergraduate jazz majors at the Eastman School of Music, he toured as a trumpet player and vocalist with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.
In 2012, he led a pre-concert lecture series for the Baltimore Symphony, and in 2018, he was invited to be a Writing Fellow at the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His writing has appeared in Berklee's Jazz Perspectives, Washington, DC's Pink Line Project, the Boston Musical Intelligencer, and The Boston Globe.
He has pursued a side career in arts event producing, having founded, curated, and hosted the pindrop sessions "classical-ish" event series with WGBH and WCRB, as well as the LA Live podcast with the PRX Podcast Garage, and in 2015, he was invited to sit as one of 50 state arts leaders on the MASSCreative Leadership Council.
He has worked as a professional actor, director, singer, and theater producer in NYC, DC, and Boston, and he is a Helen Hayes Award-winning actor and member of Actors' Equity.
Dr. McCool has been delighted and honored to teach courses on popular music, classical music, musical theater, and world music traditions in the Boston College Music Department since 2018, and for Woods College since 2020.
